


Tofu, Green Veg and Filtered Water?

by meh_guh



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: M/M, Mpreg, No One Should Trust These Jokers With a Child, No beta we die like mne, Pregnancy Cravings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 01:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17132279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meh_guh/pseuds/meh_guh
Summary: Venom knocks Eddie up with Anne's kid. But Venom gets the cravings.





	Tofu, Green Veg and Filtered Water?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [atavistique (Rivers)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivers/gifts).



> Dammit, the original had font fancies for Venom but I am _waaaaaay_ too lazy to futz around trying to figure out how to make the same effect here.

At first Eddie thinks it’s just stress, or maybe Venom’s bullheaded desire to survive off tatertots and chocolate in the absence of bad guys’ faces. It’s not until the pooch at his waist refuses to go down after horking his guts into the bowl that he starts to get suspicious.

 

_ We do not see the problem _ , Venom says, shooting a tentacle out to the kitchen to grab the ice water from the fridge. Eddie gratefully swishes his mouth out and takes a long swallow.

 

‘Tell me I’m being crazy,’ Eddie asks, exhausted and unsettled but almost resigned. ‘Like, you’re an alien, but this is impossible.’

 

Venom radiates the sort of confusion of the first few weeks, when Eddie was setting boundaries over who was edible and who had to be knocked unconscious.

 

Eddie has a visceral desire not to voice the idea, but hiding your face from shit just means said shit gets to creep right up and bite you in the arse.

 

‘Tell me we’re not pregnant,’ he says, managing to keep his tone flat enough not to count as pleading.

 

_ Is that the human term for spawning? _ Venom twines lovingly around Eddie’s arm, ghosting caresses along Eddie’s fevered skin.  _ Yes, we will spawn. _

 

‘This isn’t possible,’ Eddie protests, fighting down another retch. ‘You can’t survive in this atmosphere,  _ how _ could you knock me up? Even if I  _ could _ be knocked up?’

 

_ We will parent the spawn together _ , Venom flicks a tongue along the drying sweat on Eddie’s throat and purrs happily.  _ But sadly it will not have symbiote genes. _

 

‘Wait,’ Eddie frowns and presses a hand to his forehead, batting a few tentative tendrils of Venom away. ‘Am I pregnant with my own  **_clone_ ** _?!’ _

 

Venom makes a dismissive sort of clucking noise.

 

_ We retain the genetic imprint of every previous host _ , Venom says, rippling over Eddie’s back in a soothing stroke that almost makes up for the nausea.

 

‘Wait,’ Eddie bolts upright, shoulder blades doing their damndest to fuse together. ‘Anne said you possessed a dog after the MRI, the kid could be half  _ shitzu _ ?!’

 

Venom hisses and whips a tendril in front of Eddie’s face, miniature head forming to scowl at him.  _ Why would we waste energy on incompatible splicing? It is made from Eddie’s and Anne’s genes. _

 

Eddie closes his eyes and tries to breathe slowly through his mouth. ‘I’m not equipped to carry a kid, Venom. Where the fuck is it gonna come  _ out _ ?’

 

Venom makes a disinterested noise and wraps the tendril around Eddie’s neck.  _ We are hungry, Eddie. Let’s go to Mrs Chen’s. We can get more food and the spawn will grow strong. _

 

It’s useless to argue with Venom in this mood, and the nausea seems to have passed, so Eddie levers himself upright and goes to find a fresh hoodie.

 

‘You’re sure it’s Anne's?’ Eddie says, absently patting his pocket to reassure himself the keys are there and they won’t have to free-climb the side of the building again. ‘Have you done this before?’

 

 _Well_ , Venom says, tone contemplative. _We have never actually_ ** _SPAWNED_** _before. We suppose there might be one or two elements from other hosts. Will the spawn be OK if, say, its ears are long? Or its nose prone to twitching?_

 

Eddie rolls his eyes. ‘If the kid is half rabbit or shitzu or what-the-fuck-ever-else you jumped in before me,  _ you’re _ taking the lead at every parent-teacher conference.’

 

Venom goes silent and sulky for the rest of the block. It’s weird, like feeling someone else pouting just behind your ear, and Eddie hunches his shoulders up a little until he’s at Mrs Chen’s and the doors are sliding open.

 

‘Chocolate and tatertots again?’ Eddie asks after giving Mrs Chen a sheepish smile for her narrow-eyed frown. He wanders down the far aisle and starts picking up and discarding seasonal promotions. He’s personally a fan of people-shaped foods, and Venom usually gets a thrill out of head-chomping and chocolate rolled into one. They watched Shrek the other day and Venom made Eddie go and buy an entire carton of gingerbread men.

 

Venom makes a sound, and it takes Eddie a moment to place it: suppressing a retch. Eddie pauses, puts the packet of chocolate Santas back on the shelf and turns to look at their reflection in the fridge door.

 

Venom stares back at him, eyes wide and uncertain.  _ We… feel unwell at the idea. What is wrong with us? _

 

Eddie blinks, a glimmer of an idea forming. It’s ridiculous, but hell. He’s pregnant to his ex-girlfriend because of his alien symbiote boyfriend. Weird was like sixteen revelations ago and he might as well just roll with it now.

 

‘Pregnant humans get cravings,’ he says slowly. ‘The cliche is that they’re always weird and gross. What  _ do _ you want?’

 

Venom makes a rumbling, thoughtful purr and drags Eddie down the aisle. They probably look drunk and comical, because Venom’s not remembering how Eddie’s legs work and it takes a few steps before Eddie manages to wrest control of his knees back.

 

Venom stops in front of the tofu and makes another sound, this time ravenous. He reaches out with Eddie’s hands and grabs five packets, and drags them down to the veg to grab spinach and broccoli and some fancy mixture of mushrooms. Eddie’s already run out of hands, so Venom shoots out some tendrils and picks out more leafy green things than Eddie’s seen all year, a couple of sweet peppers, a bag of peeled garlic and something yellow Eddie doesn’t recognise at all.

 

‘OK,’ Eddie blinks and staggers a little at the uneven weight of about twelve pounds of health foods until Venom shifts under his skin and redistributes the load. ‘This is unexpected.’

 

Eddie waits a moment to see if Venom wants to grab anything else, but it seems like they’re all done for the moment. He heads to the counter and Mrs Chen’s startled gaze, dumping his load on the bench and feeling Venom retreat back inside.

 

‘You feeling alright, Eddie?’ Mrs Chen says, giving him a searching look even as she rings everything up and loads it all into bags. ‘Doctor tell you and your parasite to eat good?’

 

Venom growls with Eddie’s throat, but doesn’t take further offence, so Eddie just shrugs and hands over a few twenties. ‘Not getting any younger, Mrs Chen. Probably a good idea to start eating clean. You have a good night.’

 

They walk quickly back to the apartment, though Venom does let Eddie take the stairs rather than shooting up the outside of the building. When the door’s closed behind them and the oddly-healthy midnight haul is sitting by the sink, Venom pauses.

 

‘So…’ Eddie folds his arms. ‘Are you going to go to town on it like that lobster?’

 

_We… are not sure_ ,  Venom stretches out a tendril with a face on the end to lick tentatively at the sweet pepper.  _ How would a human eat this?  _

 

‘Honestly, it looks like a stir-fry waiting to happen,’ Eddie says, waiting for the rush of revulsion Venom feels at the very idea of cooked food other than tatertots.

 

_ Ye-es,  _ Venom curls back towards Eddie, grinning and licking his lips.  _ Stir us some fry, Eddie. _

 

Eyebrows all the way up, Eddie digs out a pot big enough for a Venom-sized serve to be cooked in. There’s a few inches of canola oil in a forgotten bottle in the cupboard, which goes in the pot to heat. He’s never been domestic, so after a moment, Eddie gives up and just roughly chops everything to approximately the same size and drops the whole lot in the hot oil. There’s plenty of stuff that doesn’t fit, so Eddie shoves three packs of tofu and about half the veg into the fridge and pokes at the pot with a wooden spoon. It smells weird, and Eddie thinks perhaps he shouldn’t have added half the bag of garlic, but it’s too late now.

 

Venom hovers a curious little face over the pot as everything cooks, burning a little when Eddie’s not too quick with the spoon, and they eat straight out of the pot, hunched over the sink as soon as it seems done.

 

It’s nothing like the stir fries he’s had before, but it pleases Venom and they go to bed smiling.

 

****

 

In hindsight, Eddie should’ve known better than to just dump the news on Anne. It takes her the best part of the six months before the birth to stop being angry. And fair enough, Eddie thinks. They’d talked about kids, but neither of them had been keen. Not to mention her very valid point about DNA theft, not that Venom can comprehend that objection  at  _ all. _

 

Dan vacillates between scientific elation and creeped-out, and Eddie goes up five sizes in pants. He is not, he’s willing to admit, a glowing mom-to-be so much as a puffy whale with aches and balance issues. Venom is solicitous and keen and spends the entire pregnancy craving health foods, which just makes it more maddening that Eddie’s ballooned up into a doughy lump.

 

Venom wants a home birth, but Eddie puts his foot down so hard it almost goes through the floor and Dan agrees to help them steal into an empty room at the hospital. So at least if anything goes wrong, they’ll be near help.

 

Eddie spends the entire last month exhausted and terrified and being talked down from panic attacks in shifts by Venom, Dan and Anne.

 

The birth is worse than anything he could imagine, and Eddie will go to his  _ grave _ before letting Venom do this to him again, but after twelve hours he is  _ never ever thinking about _ , Eddie closes his arms around the squalling red lump and bursts into happy tears.

 

Venom curls over Eddie’s arms and purrs something which sounds like words over the baby.

 

‘That…’ Dan says from the end of the bed, sounding shell-shocked. ‘Certainly was something. Uh, she looks healthy, but there are tests we should do.’

 

Eddie brushes a thumb down his daughter’s tiny squinched face and grins. ‘Can we have five minutes?’

 

‘Sure,’ Dan says, and he and Anne hustle out.

 

‘What do we name her?’ Eddie asks, examining her tiny fingers and perfect nose.

 

_Melee?_ Venom suggests.  _ Miasma? I quite like Bane. _

 

Eddie sighs and shakes his head. ‘What about Melody? You can call her Melee for short then.’

 

_ Melody?  _ Venom rolls the name around, considering.  _ Yes, it has a pleasing sound and does not advertise her ferocity. It will work as camouflage. Melody Brock. Our spawn. _

 

‘Our daughter,’ Eddie agrees, and then Dan comes to take Melody away to be weighed and measured and registered in the slightly-dishonest ways they’ve decided on.

  
Eddie leans back into Venom’s tentacles and closes his eyes, exhausted and joyful. Their  _ family _ .


End file.
